I really did not take enough pictures while I was in Singapore…
I left SFO on 11/2, hoping for my upgrade to clear, but I had no chance as the waitlist was very long. The plane ride was not so bad since I was in a bulkhead aisle seat. One nice thing, I discovered, was that being in the bulkhead seats meant that leftover pre-departure drinks from the business class cabin would be brought back and offered. The flight to NRT was essentially a daytime flight, so I worked through most of it, lesson planning for the class I was going to teach. Partway through, I did take a bit of a break to watch Up. I didn’t think it was that good.
My upgrade to business class for NRT-SIN had cleared, so after clearing security, I headed over to the Red Carpet Club for my first airport lounge experience. After eating a few things to eat, I went over to the shower area. I didn’t have to wait very long for a shower room to open up, and I was given a nice ammenity kit. Since I was in business class, I decided that there was little need to get to the gate area early to board, so I hung around, browsing the internet and drinking beer dispensed by the awesome beer machine. I walked up to the gate about 25 minutes before departure and grabbed my bulkhead window seat in the 777 mini-cabin. It may not be as nice as the 747 lie-flat business class seats, but it was plenty comfortable and the service and food were good. I had sea bass, which was quite good, and then I slept for most of the flight in the comfortable seats.
I arrived in Singapore about 30 minutes before the scheduled arrival time (hooray for schedule padding!), and cleared immigration and customs pretty quickly. I was met by my driver who took me to the Singapore Recreation Club where I was staying for the next 16 nights. I was a bit disoriented, but they took me to the third floor and showed me my room, which was beautiful. The entrance and shower were slightly elevated over the bedroom area, and the shower had frosted glass for its walls. I wasn’t thinking about the blog, so unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the room.
I slept OK for having just slept about four hours on the flight to Singapore, and I woke up early in the morning. The person in charge (along with his son) of the program and his wife took me across the block to the Singapore Cricket Club for lunch. Food service was pretty slow, but the food was good. We talked a bit about the class I was going to teach and settled some of the logistics.
Afterwards, we went back to the lounge at the hotel level of the SRC, where the wife grabbed a handful of maps and pointed out some places of interest. I intended to get some work done afterwards, but I was feeling pretty tired so I took a nap until dinner. I walked over to Raffles City, eventually settling on a Chinese restaurat where I ate some noodles with seafood.
After some more lesson preparation, I went to bed early since I was still tired from the jetlag and the night before.
